Dear Edward(30)

“I’m not nervous,” he says, knowing that none of them will believe him.

“You were way better off being homeschooled,” she says. “Getting to sit around all day reading books.”

Edward shrugs. His father had explained to him and Jordan, very early on, his objections to the school system. “It’s not awful,” Bruce had said. “It’s a mixed bag. But there are twenty-five kids in a class, at least, which means the learning is inefficient. If you’re bright, you’re slowed down by the fact that other kids can’t move at your pace. And in part because there are so many kids, they run the schools like factories, or, dare I say, jails. You’re put in lines, moved when the bells ring, allowed to run around in a high-fenced yard once a day. None of this is conducive to deep thinking or creativity. You start to go deep into a subject, and a bell rings to pull you out of it.” Bruce rubbed his head, which was what he did when he was agitated. “Does this make sense to you?” Jordan, eight, and Edward, five, shrugged. But late at night, on a day long with math sheets, and piano practice, and their own thoughts, one of them would say into the dark, “I bet school would be better than this.”

“I want to be in Shay’s class,” Edward says. He’s wearing the gray pants and white button-down shirt that Lacey laid out for him. He didn’t recognize the clothes, but he never does. Lacey bought an entire wardrobe for him after the crash, and she dresses him differently than his mother did. He used to wear bright colors, and cargo pants, and Jordan’s hand-me-down skater T-shirts; now he wears pressed jeans, white T-shirts, and, apparently, slacks.

Besa’s eyes are hard as they pull up in front of the school. “Pobrecito,” she says. “Don’t worry, you and Shay will be together. We already took care of that.”

The building—which houses the town’s middle and high schools—is brick and enormous. They have pulled up by the middle school entrance; the older teenagers enter on the far side of the building and take all their classes on the top two floors. The middle school occupies the lower half of the building. Edward focuses on Shay’s blue-shirted back and on keeping his balance—he no longer needs crutches, but his legs are not yet equally strong—as he makes his way inside. His expectation of what a school looks like comes from movies, and this one looks correct. A couple of offices by the front entrance, tile walls, rectangular lockers, and rows of classroom doors. It’s very different from where Edward has spent his life learning: draped over the living room couch, reading on his bunk bed, working on math at the kitchen table while his dad cooked dinner.

He walks carefully, as kids pinball, laughing and talking, down the long hallway. There are warning calls from grown-ups to slow down, be careful, wait your turn. “Children!” an adult yells. “Calm your bodies!”

He’s not talking to me, Edward thinks.

He feels his ears click, click, click. Then he’s in a classroom sitting next to Shay, watching a teacher write the formula for the area of a triangle on a blackboard. He already knows this; his father taught it to him years earlier. A few minutes later, he realizes that he could teach this class; the math is as simple to him as breathing. Then another row of seats, in another classroom, with a female teacher dressed in lavender, who seems to look everywhere in the room but at him. Then a clamorous cafeteria, where Shay helps him with his tray and he nibbles at meatloaf that’s the same color as his pants.

He has the sensation of being followed by a cloud of buzzing bees. He’s bothered by the noise; it seems to descend from the ceiling and rise from the floor simultaneously.

Shay forks a Tater Tot and says, “Pretend we’re in the Great Hall—everyone whispered about Harry on his first day there too.”

“I haven’t done anything to whisper about,” Edward says.

“You’ve done as much as Harry had at that point.”

When she sees he’s still looking at her, she says, “You survived.”

Oh, he thinks. Right.

He’s on his way out of the cafeteria when there’s a tap on his shoulder. He looks behind him and sees a brown-skinned man with a mustache.

“Principal Arundhi,” Shay says.

“Good afternoon, Shay,” he says. “Edward, may I have a word with you in my office?” He looks at Shay and says, “I promise to deliver him safely to his next class. Don’t worry, young lady.”

Edward follows the man’s back through the crowded hall, then up two sets of stairs, then down another hall. Here, the kids look swollen and distorted, and Edward realizes they’re on a high school floor. The boys’ voices are louder and deeper, and when two kids mock-tackle each other near him, Edward flinches. Students lower their voices, though, and straighten up when they notice the principal. Several say hello, then give Edward a look. Principal Arundhi turns in to a room with a mottled-glass door. When the door closes behind them, the clamor of the hallway is muffled.

The room and windowsill are lined with plants of various sizes, and more greenery hangs from the ceiling. Some have fat leaves, others are spindly and tall; two have small pink flowers. The air smells like moist dirt. The desk, in the center of this greenhouse, looks like a mistake.

Principal Arundhi smiles. “I like to bring nature inside. I’m a bit of a gardener.” He puts his hands together in front of him. “Now, Edward, usually when we have a new student join us, I announce it over the loudspeaker on the beginning of the first day and ask everyone to help welcome the child. I didn’t do that with you, because I thought you wouldn’t require, or desire, any additional attention. But I wanted to see if there was anything I could do to make you feel more comfortable here.”